Trailing by 17 with under six minutes to play, Lourdes battled back to within five on Tuesday evening, but ran out of time to complete the comeback, falling to the University of Northwestern Ohio 88-83 inside of Racer Gymnasium in Lima, Ohio.
 
"Playing the top scorer and rebounder in the league on their home court, teams need to come out and jump early," head coach Tandy Bradford said.  "We let them get too comfortable and really had to work to come back.  We love how hard our team will compete to win.  Right now we aren't stringing that focus into four quarters."
 
Lourdes trailed 84-67 before mounting its late charge, closing on a 16-4 run, capped by a Winter Richburg (Toledo, Ohio/Rogers H.S.) three-point play with just over a minute to play.  The Gray Wolves had two chances down the stretch to cut into the lead even further, but came up empty.
 
Northwestern Ohio jumped out to an early 20-9 lead five minutes into the game following an 11-2 run.  The lead was 12, 37-25, at the 6:42 mark of the second period before the Gray Wolves went on a run.  A 12-2 spurt, capped by a three-point play by Grace Ryan (Temperance, Mich./Bedford H.S.) pulled Lourdes to within two, 39-37 before the Racers took a 46-42 lead into the locker room.
 
An 18-2 Racers run in the third quarter pushed the lead to 19, 68-49, before Lourdes cut the deficit to 14 heading into the final 10 minutes.  UNOH scored the first four points of the final stanza to push the advantage back to 18 and the Racers maintained the 17-point edge before the Gray Wolves made their final push.
 
Emma Pedroza (Napoleon, Ohio/Napoleon H.S.) led the Gray Wolves with 15 points while Macie Stringfellow (Perrysburg, Ohio/Perrysburg H.S.) added 12 points off the bench.  Alex Wolfe (Toledo, Ohio/Notre Dame Academy) and Shae Pedroza (Napoleon, Ohio/Napoleon H.S.) each added 10 points.
 
Lourdes grabbed 17 offensive rebounds which led to 26 second chance points on the evening while the Gray Wolves limited the Racers to just four offensive boards.
 
Jada Haines led Northwestern Ohio (4-3, 2-2 WHAC) with 30 points on 12-of-21 shooting while Alysia Lawson added 19 points.
 
Lourdes (3-5, 1-4) will have eight days off before returning home on Nov. 30 as the Gray Wolves entertain Aquinas.  Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m. inside the Russell J. Ebeid Recreation Center.